Video: Top General Apologizes for Deaths of Afghan Kids

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Video: Top General Apologizes for Deaths of Afghan Kids

Updated: Mar. 4, 2011; 9:55 a.m. EST

In an unusual video, the general in charge of operations for the NATO war in Afghanistan offered "sincere apologies" for the accidental deaths of nine children in Kunar Province on Tuesday, something he called a "seemingly inconceivable tragedy."

Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, who runs the International Security Forces Afghanistan Joint Command, said that attack helicopters responded to a rocket attack on a U.S. and Afghan combat outpost in the Pech Valley. Only the nine people they killed turned out to be "simply boys who had been cutting wood earlier."

Rodriguez said he wasn't trying to make excuses for the boys' death. But he emphasized that "such incidents are rare," though he "acknowledge[s] we have to do better." NATO troops who cause civilian casualties – which economists document create new enemies – "feel worse than they can express, and they have to live with that for the rest of their lives."

NATO rarely goes so far as to apologize outright for civilian deaths, usually expressing "regret" for them instead. (For example, a September 6 press release about NATO-caused civilian deaths in Helmand: "'It is regrettable that insurgents continue to place civilians in harm's way,' said U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Timothy M. Zadalis, ISAF Joint Command director of plans and projects and team lead.") But on Wednesday, Rodriguez' boss, Gen. David Petraeus, declared himself "deeply sorry" for the killings in Kunar.

The apologies follow Afghan outrage over perceived insensitivity from Petraeus about possible civilian casualties in an earlier operation in Kunar. Through a spokesman, Petraeus said that burns suffered by children "may have been the result of discipline sometimes handed out" by their parents. A spokesman for President Hamid Karzai called the statement "outrageous, insulting and racist."

Versions of Rodriguez's English-language video are dubbed into Dari and Pashto, and voice files for radio broadcast in all three languages have been prepared, according to Maj. Angie Blair, a spokeswoman for Rodriguez. Very few Afghans have internet access, getting most of their broadcast information from radio, particularly in remote areas like the Pech Valley.

Rodriguez closed the video by flipping the ultimate responsibility for the deaths back on the insurgents, calling on Afghans to "help their security forces stop this senseless killing brought upon all of us by an enemy who wants to rule the people through fear and violence."

Ironically, U.S. troops are set to leave the Pech Valley, the site of at least 100 troop deaths in years of protracted fighting. In an interview with Danger Room last year, the commander of NATO troops in eastern Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. John Campbell, questioned whether there was anything to be gained fighting in the area. He assessed that most in Kunar fight the U.S. not out of ideological grievance, but simply because its troops are there.